uch information leaked from Alethea-Belle's lips. Each evening
at supper we asked how she had fared during the day. Always she
replied primly: "I thank you; I'm getting along nicely, better than I
expected."

Mrs. Spafford, a peeper through doors and keyholes, explained the
schoolmarm's methods.

"I jest happened to be passin' by," she told me, "and I peeked in
through--through the winder. That great big hoodlum of a George Spragg
was a-sassin' Miss Buchanan an' makin' faces at her. The crowd was a-
whoopin' him up. In the middle o' the uproar she kneels down. 'O
Lord,' says she, 'I pray Thee to soften the heart of pore George
Spragg, and give me, a weak woman, the strength to prevail against his
everlastin' ignorance and foolishness!' George got the colour of a
beet, but he quit his foolin'. Yes sir, she prays for 'em, and she
coaxes 'em, an' she never knows when she's beat; but they'll be too
much for her. She's losin' her appetite, an' she don't sleep good. We
won't be boardin' her much longer."

But that night, as usual, when I asked Alethea-Belle how she did, she
replied, in her prim, formal accents: "I'm doing real well, I thank
you; much, much better than I expected."

Two days later I detected a bruise upon her forehead. With great
difficulty I extracted the truth. Tom Eubanks had thrown an apple at
the schoolmarm.

"And what did you do?"

Her grey eyes were unruffled, her delicately cut lips never smiled, as
she replied austerely: "I told Thomas that I was sure he meant well,
but that if a boy wished to give an apple to a lady he'd ought to hand
it politely, and not throw it. Then I ate the apple. It was a Newtown
pippin, and real good. After recess Thomas apologised."

"What did the brute say?"

"He is not a brute. He said he was sorry he'd thrown the pippin so
hard."

Next day I happened to meet Tom Eubanks. He had a basket of Newtown
pippins for the schoolmarm. He was very red when he told me that Miss
Buchanan liked--apples. Apples at that time did not grow in the brush-
hills. Tom had bought them at the village store.

* * * * *

But Alethea-Belle grew thinner and whiter.

Just before the end of the term the climax came. I happened to find
the little schoolmarm crying bitterly in a clump of sage-brush near
the water-troughs.

"It's like this," she confessed presently: "I can't rid myself of that
weak, hateful Belle. She's going to lie down soon, and let the boys
t